Written By: Anton Sawyer
Philosophically Speaking; The US Economy Will Be Destroyed By 2030—At Least History Says So
Whatever deity it is you pray to, I beg that the next time you have a conversation with them, ask them to make everything I write here not become reality. I know, it’s weird hearing a writer hope that their predictions are utterly false, but when you see where I’m going with all of this, I’m sure that by the end you will agree with me. For once, I’m hoping history REALLY doesn’t repeat itself—because if it does, then the middle-class American citizen is going to be dealing with a whole lot of suffering over the next decade or so. Worse than anyone in our lifetimes have seen.
“Representatives of organizations of citizens opposed to the mask-wearing ordinance … met last night and formed the Anti-Mask League.” This is the first part of an article published in 1919 that announced the formation of a new organization hell-bent on destroying all mask mandates brought about due to the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918.
History loves to repeat itself. With the amount of acquired human knowledge that is easily accessible to billions worldwide via the internet, humans are far too concerned with their day-to-day lives to stop and wax poetic for hours about what history has taught us. Plus, they have made things like "Plants Versus Zombies” too addictive. Because we are so easily distracted as a species, there have been some events transpiring over the last decade or so which has sent us on a trajectory that could make “The Great Depression” look like a minor bump in the road. There is still time to help shift the hands of fate to a more beneficial position for the lower and middle classes and stop this train ride into Disney-hell. But as I’ve always said, you can’t fix a problem if you don’t know one exists.
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First off, it’s imperative to set some ground rules for where I’m coming from. For those of you who are long-time “Truthers” (i.e. readers), some of this is going to be a recap, but still vital nonetheless. One of the foundations to what makes us human is our ability to define our intestinal fortitude by the level of suffering we can endure in life.
One great example is martyrdom. Everyone around the world knows who Mahatma Gandhi is. The man led a life of complete suffering and then was killed for his beliefs. In the eyes of humanity at large, this is seen as incredibly heroic. Also, if you want to get deep into philosophy, I tend to agree with Friedrich Nietzsche and his ideal that the mere pursuit of happiness is something that is a waste of time. In the “Last Man” parable, Nietzsche writes of a pathetic being who lives in a time where mankind has had to “invent happiness” because it is not our natural proclivity. Due to this zeal for sorrow that we share as a species, we oftentimes will allow our yoke in life to become almost unmovable, making stagnation our only reality—and if we can see a way out, then we will try pushing even harder as the scenery never changes.
The other bit of history that we can glean knowledge from when it comes to the future is found in a prior article, “The 100-Year Lie.” In essence, looking back over the last 100 years, every time a two-term conservative president has lowered taxes on top earners and de-regulated businesses (especially the Stock Market and its oversight), it has led to a catastrophic stock market crash which threw America into either depression or recession. The lie comes from the fact that they preach this economic plan is the only “real American” option and is the only path to economic success.
In the 1920s, Calvin Coolidge slashed taxes to 25% on top earners and de-regulated businesses. In 1929 we got “Black Tuesday”—the greatest stock market crash in American history. This kicked off “The Great Depression.”
In 1980 Ronald Reagan introduced his “Reaganomics” which consisted of slashing taxes for top earners and de-regulating banking and businesses. In 1987 we got “Black Monday”—the greatest stock market crash in American history since 1929. This helped propel us into a recession that lasted through most of the George H.W. Bush administration.
In 2001 we got George W. Bush who resurrected Reaganomics by cutting taxes on top earners and de-regulating banking and businesses once again. In 2008 we got the great financial crisis which caused a massive stock market crash—the greatest stock market crash in American history since 1929. This kicked off “The Great Recession.”
As of this publication, we have a Democrat president in Joe Biden. His policies have helped stop the deregulation of businesses that were brought about during Trump’s era. Also, with Biden’s infrastructure plan to include increases on taxes for the top earners, it doesn’t seem that we’re anywhere near the same situations as we were in the 1920s, 1980s, or 2000s. So, it seems somewhat odd to look at our situation now getting as dire as we have seen within a century.
If you know American history, there was one other stock market crash that occurred that doesn’t meet the parameters above. The “Dot Com Bubble Burst” of 2000. At that time America was at the end of a two-term democratic presidency with Bill Clinton. Taxes on the wealthy were higher, businesses were being monitored, and we actually had wiped out our debt in America and held a surplus; these facts directly contradict what is the basis for the argument of the 100-year lie. At the surface level that is correct, but a little more context is definitely going to be needed.
Let’s turn back the hands of time to the late 1990s and look at what the internet culture was at the time. Napster was just starting, AOL was still the method used by a majority of Americans to log on, and neither Netflix nor YouTube had become the internet juggernauts they are today. It was the beginning of something new, something revolutionary … something completely de-regulated. If you were around at the time the internet started proliferating across the nation, day to day something was changing. People had never really confronted the idea of using a credit card to buy something they had never seen in person, or that they didn’t have to pay for a postage stamp or wait two weeks to send/receive a letter.
The government knew it was something that needed to remain free (in terms of speech and other American values), but also that there had to be some guidelines. In their defense, I can only imagine how hard it would be to try and legislate something so powerful, so anonymous, and so new that its full potential was a decade or so away from being realized. But they did come up with “The Communications Decency Act” in 1996—this is the act that contains the infamous freedom of speech Section 230 that has been under scrutiny for the years. The issue is that the legislative decency act doesn’t have much in the way of regulating commerce. This is understandable given that online purchasing was seen as some kind of unicorn, and the thought of our economic world being so intrinsically intertwined with the internet wasn’t within the realm of possibility.
Over the next few years, once commerce really started to take off via the internet, the stage was set. We had a system that generated hundreds of millions of dollars from average citizens. A system that had no real regulations surrounding its business model and the minute details of tax revenues generated from these purchases were not being implemented as they should. Using our established equation for the stock market crashes written above, the situation looked like this: A system that is used by a majority of American citizens (internet) is generating massive amounts of funds with minimal tax revenue and limited regulations, all leading us to the dot com bubble burst of 2000.
So, let’s talk a little about cryptocurrencies …
The situation with cryptocurrencies has an all too familiar feel about it. They have become massive to not only America but the world. The term “too big to fail” has also been tossed around when it comes to this new form of economic influx as there have been billions of dollars generated since they began in 2009 with Bitcoin.
The tax laws written for cryptocurrency, even when read by someone who is not a tax professional, show so many loopholes that could allow for someone who invests in it, to pay little to nothing. According to the IRS, if Bitcoin is held as a capital asset, you must treat them as property for tax purposes. General tax principles applicable to property transactions apply. Like stocks or bonds, any gain or loss from the sale or exchange of the asset is taxed as a capital gain or loss. Some people "mine" Bitcoin by using computer resources to validate Bitcoin transactions and maintain the public Bitcoin transaction ledger. According to the IRS, when a taxpayer successfully “mines” Bitcoin and has earnings from that activity whether in the form of Bitcoin or any other form, he or she must include it in his gross income after determining the fair market dollar value of the virtual currency as of the day you received it. Since all personal property taxes are state-imposed, each jurisdiction may include different types of property in the tax assessment. Additionally, these taxes are often imposed by local governments, such as cities and counties, making the rules even less uniform across the country. For example, in Duval County, Florida, personal property taxes apply to all tangible property you own that produces income. This not only includes all furniture, tools, and equipment you use in a business, but also the furniture inside your rental homes.
Basically, you could mine the Bitcoin, but since it’s in your home you can also use everything meant to mine the Bitcoin as a tax write-off. Plus, capital gains taxes have been a major talking point for both political parties due to the comparatively smaller amount it is when looking at income or other taxes. Take this and combine it with the fact that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are so new that it’s like the wild west days of the beginning of the internet again—too new and too difficult to regulate—and the stage for catastrophe is set.
I mean, can you name another business entity where if a billionaire investor (like Elon Musk), can send out a 200-character tweet and financially devalue the business by at least 15% or more and have it impact the overall economy in such a drastic fashion?
Some CEOs have done these kinds of tweets/devaluation, but when CEOs do it for a specific business it typically only impacts the investors and that specific company itself. Because of how massive cryptocurrencies are, and how many people/businesses are involved with them, the impact is much greater on a national scale.
Forbes magazine published a piece in the summer of 2021 about the crypto-bubble and how it is likely to burst. Their focus is on the impact that mining these cryptocurrencies have on the climate, and this damage to the environment will ultimately lead to the crypto-bubble bursting. I don’t know if climate change will be that specific reasoning which will lead to the bubble bursting, but if history is any indicator, it’s going to happen and happen within the next decade.
Other than the 2008 presidential election, whenever America has had a record-breaking stock market crash, the politicians have been able to convince the general population that only the policies of a conservative can fix the mess. After the 1929 crash, we elected conservative Herbert Hoover. After the 1987 crash, we elected republican George H.W. Bush. Neither of these follow-up presidents were able to fix anything, and in some cases made the situation worse. Given that Americans only have a memory of about six months, if this crash happens during the Biden administration, I can almost guarantee a republican will win the presidency in the election following. The general population will blame whoever is the president at the time of the crash (not taking into consideration any of the events leading to it) and throw their weight behind the opposition.
Because the GOP economic policies cannot work, it will make the situation to the lower and middle classes unbearable—but it needs to. Remember earlier when I said humans define themselves through their suffering? History shows that until the overall population hits at least a 30% level of poverty, no real legislation that can stop the growth of income inequality will be enacted. At its peak of the Great Depression in 1933, we had an unemployment rate of over 24%, with the poverty level above 30%. Once this happened, we elected Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt was lambasted by conservatives for his “socialist program” called “The New Deal” claiming it would destroy businesses and the American way of life itself. Once all his policies were in effect, we had the greatest economic period of prosperity for all economic classes; the 1950s, 60s, and early-70s. But it took a lot of starvation and suffering before we would accept such a radical plan as a nation.
In the first sentence I asked you to pray to whomever it is that this prediction doesn’t come to pass. As historical research shows, we are on the same pathway that we were 100 years ago. Due to the hubris of most people claiming to “know what’s going on” I’m afraid that our historical downfall of the 20th century will be the same in the 21st, showing that we have truly learned nothing.
But hey, there are people like you and me. People who know what has happened and what is likely to happen if we continue down this same path. I’m just hoping that enough people like you and myself can reach out to enough people who are not like us and let them know that the storm is coming, and it's most likely going to be a downpour of poverty for the 99%. If not enough people become aware, then the 2030s are looking to be a historic decade—and not for positive reasons.
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